Way back in 2001 as the character of Rupert Giles left Buffy the Vampire Slayer (greatest TV show ever made) Joss Whedon first toyed with the idea of a spin off series made by the BBC and starring Anthony Stewart Head in his role as Rupert Giles. This series was to be called Ripper and Whedon has been mentioning the series/special in interviews ever since.

On Wednesday The A.V. Club ran an interview with Whedon discussing The Avengers in which he revealed that Ripper still isn’t completely dead yet. The relevant part of the interview is below:

The thing about Ripper — the essence of it — is that the BBC came to me at one point like, “It doesn’t have to be Ripper. It can just be [Anthony Stewart Head], and there’s magic, and he’s Tony, cuz he’s awesome.” And that’s the thing: For some reason, he keeps getting sexier every year. That’s not happening to me! I’m like, “What are you doing?” And that story was always about a mature guy who’s lived, and about the choices he’s made. So you could make that now, or you could make it 10 years from now. And I’ve tortured Tony more than any other living human with, “We’re definitely gonna do this!” Because I thought we were. He’s working so much, though, I’d feel too guilty. But that’s the thing with Ripper: It doesn’t go away in my head because he’s still right for it, and he could still bring it.

If Buffy the Vampire Slayer is my favourite TV series of all time then Rupert Giles is my favourite TV character of all time. Clearly nothing would make me happier than if Joss Whedon were to finally make Ripper at the BBC with Anthony Stewart Head. I just wish that the project would either happen or that Whedon would stop bring it up and raising my hopes.

Come on Joss, poop or get off the pot. I’ve been waiting eleven years already.

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Last night I was invited along to a screening of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, a film with a trailer so filled with British ‘National Treasures’ that I nearly fell over myself with excitement. As someone who only falls over themselves once a week, this was no mean feat. I can’t tell you whether I liked the film or not, but I can bore you with something interesting* I noticed over at the BBFC. Just try to stop me.

The BBFC has rated The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel as 12A and in their consumer advice say that the film “contains strong language, moderate sex references and racist remarks.” I was surprised to see racist remarks highlighted as a reason parents may not want their children to see a film, though I’m not sure why as racism is of course vile and reprehensible. I’m not afraid to take a widely supported and uncontroversial stand.

Digging deeper, as only someone with too much time on their hands does, I found over at the Parents BBFC website guidelines for what sort of language the BBFC will allow at 12A:

Discriminatory language may be present but will not be endorsed by the work as a whole. Aggressive use of discriminatory language (for example homophobic or racist terms) is unlikely to be acceptable at ‘12’ or ‘12A’ unless it is clearly condemned.

So there you have it, you can only hear racist slurs which are not clearly condemned when you are at least 15 years old. I suppose the aim is to not expose the nation’s children to endless streams of fully endorsed racism until they are old enough to feel sufficiently outraged. Makes sense to me.

Interesting* also to note that American History X, a film about neo-Nazis and filled with racism so strong it borders on the unwatchable, has no mention of racism in its consumer advice from the BBFC. Hmm.

There you have it, a series of facts strung together into something almost resembling a coherent dialogue. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go and wrestle with the Oscar Nomination live-stream again.

*Debatable

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Consider this a sequel to when I called James Cameron a prick, these Camerons rile me right up. A report is to be released on Monday by Lord Smith reviewing the government’s film policy and David Cameron has spoken out ahead of its release and said the following:

“Our role, and that of the BFI, should be to support the sector in becoming even more dynamic and entrepreneurial, helping UK producers to make commercially successful pictures that rival the quality and impact of the best international productions.”

It is only appropriate to behave like the rest of the internet and focus on one part of what he said and extrapolate this beyond all recognition, making sure to ignore the fact that he was probably only saying what he had been advised to say and that he probably cares very little about what films we make. Cameron has annoyed me in the past so I’m happy to get subjective about this.

Let’s focus on that key phrase “commercially successful pictures” and bring in the fact that the BBC suggest that “Lord Smith is also expected to recommend developing an export strategy to increase the profits of British films”. To rile me up fully let’s hear from Julian Fellowes, screenwriter and contributor to Lord Smith’s report, who says:

“There has been the thinking in the past that public money should only go into films that can’t get any investment anywhere else. When you actually analyse that it means it should only go into films that nobody could conceivably want to see and there’s no logic in that – you want to make a film-friendly, audience-friendly industry.”

All of this suggests to me that too much emphasis is going to be put on the financial viability of a film, rather than the film’s quality, when it comes to deciding whether or not it deserves public funding. Britain has a reputation across the world for making quality films of substance rather than vapid, effects-laden blockbusters and to put this second to profitability is foolish and not really something a politician should be getting involved in. We’re talking about art not policy, and the mere idea of being able to predict a film’s future success is laughable.

I would actually argue against Julian Fellowes and say that the perfect reason for a film to receive public funding is that it is a film worth making, but is at risk of not receiving funding elsewhere. A mainstream British film with broad appeal can presumably find finance elsewhere so doesn’t need the BFI to help coax it to the big screen. Looking back at my Top 20 Films of 2011, eight films on the list are British films and of those only The King’s Speech can really be said to have set the international box office on fire. Other films such as Tyrannosaur, Attack the Block, Submarine and We Need to Talk About Kevin are examples of fine British cinema which showcase our talents without ever finding huge commercial success. I realise that not all of these films received public funding, but it does go to show that our finest productions may not be those bringing in the big money.

Julian Fellowes might not find the finer British fare to be something anybody “could conceivably want to see”, but for me these are the films we should be making and public funding should support this without so much as a sideways glance towards profitability or any other words which lead creatives away from their vision. The BFI has long been celebrating and protecting the history of British cinema and now that it is in charge of its future too, the BFI should not let return on investment get in the way of funding worthwhile projects.

My final point is simply that the highest grossing film of all time is Avatar by my arch nemesis James Cameron. I could not be more proud of the fact that Avatar is not British and hope we can continue to fund films which never use the word “unobtainium”.

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Earlier this year Felicity Jones made a very rash decision for a young actress on the rise; she left a big budget film in which she was the lead to honour her commitment to a play in an off-West End theatre. In July of 2011 Felicity Jones starred in the Donmar Warehouse production of Luise Miller and abandoned the role of Snow White in Mirror, Mirror. Surely this was a huge mistake?

Before we decide, why not take a peak at the new trailer for Mirror, Mirror:

So while Jones gained acclaim for her role in Luise Miller and buzz built over her role in Like Crazy, Lily Collins has taken over the role of Snow White in a film with a much derided trailer which pales in comparison to its rival Snow White and the Huntsman. In all honesty I can’t even bring myself to watch the entire trailer for Mirror, Mirror, but I doubt the final 30 seconds showcase any better footage than the rest.

Since making the best career choice of her acting life Jones has filmed a second film with Like Crazy director Drake Doremus opposite Guy Pearce and signed on to Warren Beatty’s Howard Hughes biopic. I will never question her decisions again.

If you fancy seeing what Felicity Jones would look like in the Snow White role, hover your mouse over the image at the top of this post (please do, it took me hours to do).

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Bond’s loyalty to M is tested as her past comes back to haunt her. As MI6 comes under attack, 007 must track down and destroy the threat, no matter how personal the cost.

Expectations
With M’s past coming back into the present we are treated to flashbacks covering her career as a spy and ultimately Judi Dench tools up and joins Daniel Craig’s Bond on a mission. With years of experience under her belt, M teaches Bond some new tricks and in a gruesome torture scene shows that she has a looser moral code than 007.

When they have an old foe cornered, Bond’s life is threatened in a climactic showdown only to be rescued by M who displays some awesome martial arts skills, think Yoda in Attack of the Clones. Exhausted, Bond and M share a tender moment amongst the carnage as the credits roll.

Reality
M briefs Bond on the situation with a concerned look on her face. Throughout the film she follows his progress offering a few quips along the way, hopefully somehow topping “cunning linguist” from Tomorrow Never Dies. At the end she congratulates Bond with some cheeky banter before the credits roll.

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Body of Work is a new feature we’re going to be running here at Mild Concern, or more accurately a new feature consisting of more features consisting of reviews. Welcome to a post about some posts about yet more posts. In Inception, this is me drugging you on a plane.

It has become clear to me that in order to truly understand and appreciate modern cinema, for better or worse, it is important to understand everything that has come before it. How can we judge a remake without knowing what it is remaking?

To better understand the journey of film we can’t just rely on watching The Story of Film: An Odyssey, we need to get our hands dirty.

In Body of Work we will take a director, writer, actor or group of puppets and watch their entire output from start to finish. This will be a lot easier for some subjects than others but should be an enlightening process. You never know, we might uncover a few gems along the way.

We’ll introduce the first Body of Work tomorrow and see where it takes us. If nothing else this is going to be a great way of generating content in slow weeks.

I’ll pop buttons in the sidebar so the progress is easy to follow and the list of subjects will be below as soon as there are some to list.

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The last of our ultimate Harry Potter Retrospectives is the personal story of my own journey with the franchise, starting in July 1998 at the age of 10 and ending in July 2011 at the age of 23. Hopefully this will put the rest of the retrospective in context and show that I wasn’t always so quick to gush about the films.

I first heard about Harry Potter in my penultimate year in Primary School (Elementary School for any Americans). I can distinctly remember someone trying to explain the plot to me, including a detailed description of something called Quidditch. It was incredibly rare for a book to be the talk of the playground, so at the school’s next annual Book Fayre I picked up a copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone along with Michael Morpurgo’s War of Jenkins’ Ear. I was in love, I can’t remember enjoying any book so much up to that point. Harry Potter was just a year older than me and so I could really relate. The fear of Secondary School was looming and the idea of a place filled with magic and adventure was exciting. Besides, Harry Potter contained none of the references to “heavy petting” which made Adrian Mole so confusing.

At this point the second book was already out so I didn’t have to wait too long before I could read the next chapter in Potter’s story. From then on every book release became an event, everyone I knew would read the latest instalment and discuss it excitedly once everyone had caught up. My copies of the books began to be passed around our household until we reached a point of pre-ordering each new book on Amazon four times, two adult editions and two children’s. It’s hard to imagine any other series of books being read by an entire family with no one patient enough to wait for someone else to finish reading them.

I read the final book somewhere in Europe while travelling with friends. Obviously my copy of the book had been pre-ordered from Amazon way in advance but two of my fellow traveller queued to buy copies in Munich. Thankfully the book wouldn’t come out in German for months so we were graced with English versions. As soon as someone finished their book I was on it, trying not to listen to their chatter about the plot. If ever there’s a time for a good, long book, it’s when stuck in a Hogwarts Express style carriage on a twelve-hour journey from Prague.

My experience with the films is a whole different story. As we’ve covered by now the early films were far from perfect and teenage fans can be a fussy bunch. With the early films the family would make a rare trip to the cinema together and would enjoy the films despite deciding that they left too much out, the kids couldn’t act and the films were hard to understand without reading the books.

By the time Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was released I was a fully fledged film snob at university and didn’t really consider seeing the film at the cinema, instead waiting and watching it on my laptop one evening. In fact the week it was released I was on the previously covered European rail adventure, and was able to sneer at posters across the continent.

After this my relationship with the films came full circle, not least because they had improved so much and so I wanted to see them on the big screen once more. In a poetic twist I went to the cinema to see Deathly Hallows Part 1 with the very man whose book I borrowed three years earlier to read on the European rails. The film was a marvel and I was in love with the franchise again.

The final film seemed like a special occasion, we were 13 years into a franchise and I couldn’t see the film with just anyone. As a result I found myself in the horror of Milton Keynes waiting to meet my sister. We had started the journey together and we going to finish it the same way, only this time in Milton Keynes in the driving rain.

With the film over there was a distinct feeling that something was over, that a little bit of our childhood had been lost. On returning to London I tried to find the small area of Kings Cross set up to look like Platform 9¾ but due to building works couldn’t find it, despite wandering in the rain for about 20 minutes. Emotional and drenched, I squelched home.

It is these past 13 years of reading and watching the adventures of Harry Potter which inspired this week of retrospective posts. I started the first book two years younger than Potter and finished the final film two years older. The Harry Potter films may not be perfect but the franchise is more than the sum of its parts. It has become something intangible, something magical, and an experience I’ll probably never find again.

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Are you ready? 10 years since Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone arrived in cinemas, and 14 years since the first book was published, the final film of a record-breaking and cast-retaining franchise is finally on release. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 has gradually become more than just another film, it now symbolises a huge achievement in British film-making and a symbolic end to so many people’s childhoods. We grew up with the boy wizard and his last stand is a final hurrah for a childhood friend.

But enough of this sentimentality! We can save all that for next week, now is the time for excitement, just look at that header. We still need to make sure you are fully prepared for the final film, we don’t want anybody saying they didn’t like the film because they couldn’t remember what was going on. Your first port of call is our superb retrospective of the series so far (with charts!) and the two videos we offered up as vital Potter prep, explaining where we left off and exactly what a horcrux is.

For any doubters we have a glowing review from Mark Kermode (whose Radio 5 live show is not on this week due to industrial action).

And to finish one last video to get you up to speed as Daniel Radcliffe and co. explain the plot of The Deathly Hallows: Part 1.

Now we just need to watch the damn thing!

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From 4pm today (right now!) the UK’s biggest ever film premiere is taking place from Trafalgar Square up to Leicester Square. In case we haven’t drilled it in enough by now, the premiere is for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 and we’re very excited. Below you can watch the whole event streaming live from the safety of your desk. It certainly beats camping out in London for three nights.

We accept no blame if the boss catches you watching Potter at work.

© 2011 Warner Bros. Ent.
Harry Potter Publishing Rights © J.K.R.
Harry Potter characters, names and related indicia are trademarks of and © Warner Bros. Ent. All Rights Reserved.

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To combat this and welcome any new readers from the world of FHM, I give you Zooey Deschanel in a classy swimsuit.

But then again, we don’t want to alienate any readers who prefer the male of the species… so here’s Joseph Gordon Levitt in a suit with Claudia Schiffer.

And because we know some people will be offended by all this objectification, here’s Joseph Gordon Levitt being complimentary, but respectful, about a girl:

He Likes You!

Your mum would love him. Back to the films…

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We did it! For the most part we managed to stay awake through all the first four Harry Potter films at the BFI IMAX Harry Potter All-Nighter.

The night was a whirlwind of emotions thanks to varying film quality and intense sleep deprivation. It’s great to see the films back to back and really appreciate how much so many aspects of the films improve over time. The IMAX screen made the films that bit more epic and immense and the free coffee in the intervals became a vital lifeline.

We took plenty of increasingly confused notes and will be fully quantifying the seven films next Monday along with a full review of the experience. What we can say in the meantime is that it was a great night and we’re looking forward to finishing off the franchise so far on Saturday night.

Tickets are still available for the first four films on Friday and slightly less available for the remaining three on Saturday. If nothing else, it’s the cheapest hotel you’ll find in London.

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As this post goes live we’re about to embark on a four film journey that will take us from 10pm tonight to 9:30 tomorrow morning. We’ll be going from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in the comfort of the BFI IMAX.

This all seemed like a good idea considering our love for Mr Potter and for trying out different cinemas (I’ve never even been to an IMAX) but will we be able to stay awake throughout?

See you on the other side for our refreshed opinions of the four films and some sleep deprived drivel.

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For no good reason, and without watching any new films with her in, my vague dislike for Helen Mirren is fading.

I thought you all should know.

I still don’t care for James Cameron, don’t worry.

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There’s a reason we stopped posting “news” about castings and films in development so much, and this past week has been a reassurance that we’re doing the right thing. Way back when, Gordon-Levitt was rumoured to be in The Dark Knight Rises as possibly The Riddler. Then it was announced that he wasn’t.

Not long ago he was back in the running for the film and then recently was “officially” confirmed to be playing Alberto Falcon and my Google Alert went wild. Now a source has claimed that he isn’t actually playing Falcon… which trumps the previous fictitious official announcement.

Oh internet, how you run with a rumour until it is reported as news on the biggest film sites. We’re just going to sit back and wait until there’s some kind of proof. If you do need wild speculation reported as facts and instant notification when a new poster is released, there’s always Empire.

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Not long ago Mild Concern favourite Zooey Deschanel became the face of Rimmel London and they’ve been ruining her face ever since. The most recent advert (above) is the worst yet. It looks more like a poor computer rendering of Ms Deschanel than a real face.

If you’re going to hire someone for their look, try not airbrush that very look away, ok?

Back to films…

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